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Adobe To Release Full PDF Specification to ISO

Posted by Hemos on from the big-changes-in-the-text-world dept.

nickull writes "Adobe announced it will release the entire PDF specification (current version 1.7 ) to the International Standards Organization (ISO) via AIIM. PDF has reached a point in its maturity cycle where maintaining it in an open standards manner is the next logical step in evolution. Not only does this reinforce Adobe's commitment to open standards (see also my earlier blog on the release of flash runtime code to the Tamarin open source project at Sourceforge), but it demonstrates that open standards and open source strategies are really becoming a mainstream concept in the software industry. So what does this really mean? Most people know that PDF is already a standard so why do this now? This event is very subtle yet very significant. PDF will go from being an open standard/specification and de facto standard to a full blown de jure standard. The difference will not affect implementers much given PDF has been a published open standard for years. There are some important distinctions however. First — others will have a clearly documented process for contributing to the future of the PDF specification. That process also clearly documents the path for others to contribute their own Intellectual property for consideration in future versions of the standard. Perhaps Adobe could have set up some open standards process within the company but this would be merely duplicating the open standards process, which we felt was the proper home for PDF. Second, it helps cement the full PDF specification as the umbrella specification for all the other PDF standards under the ISO umbrella such as PDF/A, PDF/X and PDF/E. The move also helps realize the dreams of a fully open web as the web evolves (what some are calling Web 2.0), built upon truly open standards, technologies and protocols."

7 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Flash SWF file specification not open by NearlyHeadless · · Score: 5, Informative
    You cannot download the Flash File Format (SWF) specification without agreeing to a license which forbids writing a flash interpreter.

    http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/fileforma t/faq/#item-1-8:

    Can I use the File Format Specification to create a SWF interpreter or player?

    No, the File Format Specification is provided for the specific purpose of enabling software applications to export to the Macromedia Flash File Format (SWF).

  2. Re:Tamarin by SavedLinuXgeeK · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, Tamarin is essentially getting Flash's action script engine, whichis EMCA Script 3.0 (I think), and this meaning that Firefox's javascript engine will be able to be replaced (overhauled) with the onen from Flash. The action script engine in flash is much faster and more robust than the one in Firefox currently.

    --
    je suis parce que j'aime
  3. "Standard du jure" [sic]? by gblues · · Score: 4, Informative

    1) I think you mean "du jour"
    2) <IndigoMantoya>I don't think "du jour" means what you think it means.</IndigoMantoya>

    "du jour" simply means "of the day" ("soup du jour" => "soup of the day"). I really don't think you intended to claim that becoming the standard of the day is a good thing. I think saying, "PDF will transition from a de facto standard to an official one" would have been clearer, more succinct, and still gotten your intended point across.

    Nathan

    1. Re:"Standard du jure" [sic]? by Idaho · · Score: 4, Informative

      1) I think you mean "du jour"
      2) I don't think "du jour" means what you think it means.
      He actually meant "de jure", not "du jure", which indeed doesn't make much sense.

      From wikipedia:

      De jure (in Classical Latin de iure) is an expression that means "based on law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "in fact".
      source

      So what he was actually trying to say is not supposed to be French (although French, being a roman language, is indeed similar to Latin).
      --
      Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
  4. Re:Well... by ettlz · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is no reason that it needs to cost so much to create non-editable documents.

    Quite, which is why things like PDFCreator exist.

  5. Re:Kudos to them by Zebra1024 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most word processors, like Microsoft Word, are created on the WYSIWYG principle. They are designed to show you on the screen how the document will look when it is printed. This is why the printer affects how the document is rendered to the screen.

  6. Re:Other apps can edit PDFs now? by Noksagt · · Score: 3, Informative
    There are a lot of ways to edit PDFs. Sometimes it is worth converting to postscript, as you'll have even more tools. The tools below are free/open source and run on Linux. Most also work on other operating systems. If you are willing to take a proprietary solution, there are even more options: